Mystic Moose, a start-up indie studio, announced that it had raised $5 million for a metaverse game project called Planet Mojo. The funding round was led by Animoca Brands, with participation from Courtside Ventures, Republic Crypto, Polygon Studios, and Sky Vision Capital.
Planet Mojo is a browser-based gaming platform or “metaverse,” as Mystic Moose refers to. Planet Mojo’s signature game is an auto-chess game where players can purchase their teams as NFTs. The NFTs in question are called “Mojos,” They are small vegetal creatures native to planet earth. The platform will also include other characters to be announced later.
Yat Siu, Executive Chairman at Animoca Brands, made the following comments in a statement:
“We invested in Mike and Mystic Moose because of the team’s experience in creating, launching, and shipping commercial titles for the game industry’s top legacy publishers. On top of that, as a big auto chess fan, I’m very excited about Planet Mojo and its upcoming blockchain-powered metaverse and auto chess game. We look forward to working with the team to push blockchain gaming to the next level.”
Mike Levine, CEO of Mystic Moose, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the theme of the game is about the meeting of nature and technology, adding:
“I was inspired by nature in many ways… There is so much sci-fi and cyberpunk in crypto, but we think there could be a lot more of that in this space. We wanted that to be a theme of this project.”
He also added that Planet Mojo is built on a gas-free system, giving an environmentally friendly message. He said the company plans to use the funding to make the planet.
Levine also added that Mystic Moose calls Planet Mojo the “metaverse” but acknowledged that the word has different definitions.
“We’re building a large, expansive world that players can socialize in, interact with, and play games in. We decided not to build a world where brands can come in, because that’s what the real world is. We wanted to create a magical place that people could escape to.”
